Posted by Vincent_QC on August 21, 2012, at 8:08:08
In reply to Re: Somatoform disorder...im alone here to have it?, posted by jono_in_adelaide on August 20, 2012, at 22:53:19
> How are you seperating what is physical and what is hysterical?
Hummm somatoform disorder is not hysterical...its anxiety who manifest with chronic symptoms. Those symptoms are REAL, mean that its not hysterical... the symptoms sometimes can transform into conversion disorder, who mean that a person can have all the symptoms of a specific disease but all the medical tests came back negative... some peoples can became blind, some others cant walk but nothing from a medical point of view can point to a disease or a medical diagnostic.
So overall somatization disorder or somatoform disorder is different than panic disorder since the symptoms tend to be chronic and its the way anxiety show up, someone with a panic disorder will have only panic attacks and anxiety and shymptoms will stop shortly after.
Now how separate what is physical and what is PSYCHOLOGICAL thats a good question. Like I just write above, the its the anxiety who manifest itself with chronic symptoms, the person dont mimic those symptoms, they are not fake or amplified, they are real. The person should start a therapy to learn how to cope with those symptoms, learn and understand thats its only anxiety and accept those symptoms. Medication can help to decrease the intensity of the symptoms but overall someone who have a somatoform disorder will have big difficulty to deal with the side effects of the meds since the anxiety is so strong to start and the body is depleted of all kind of energy to fight those symptoms, so its a long process.
I guess the symptoms slowly reduce and can stop when the anxiety and the root of the problem is under control and clearly understand by the patient, whi is not my case...I have to learn how to cope with my symltoms and learn to live with them, stop worry about the symptoms, but its a hard and long process...
poster:Vincent_QC
thread:1023728
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120818/msgs/1023806.html